Business Daily

The Pentland Firth is the strait that lies between the far north of mainland Scotland and the Orkney Islands.

It's a wild area with some of the fastest tides in the world, where the power of the sea is being harnessed by tidal turbines sitting on the sea bed.

But this type of green energy is still very expensive to generate - so what is the future of tidal and wave power?

We explore some of the ground breaking projects being developed in the region and speak to companies who are trying to reduce costs to make the energy more viable.

Produced and presented by Theo Leggett

(Image: A MeyGen turbine being installed on the sea bed. Credit: MeyGen)

Padel is a fast-growing sport, attracting investment from celebrities and major brands. What is it about the game that makes it so attractive?

We hear from professional players of the sport, and head to Sweden, where the Padel boom, and subsequent bust, might hold some lessons for other countries.

(Image: Portuguese football player Cristiano Ronaldo plays Padel during an event in Singapore, 2023. Credit: Getty Images)

Presented and produced by Daniel Rosney

Up to 40% of food in Africa and India is wasted because of a lack of what's called "the cold chain" - the infrastructure keeping food chilled and fresh, from farm to fork.

Many small-scale farmers have no access to any kind of refrigeration, meaning they're losing income and wasting food that could otherwise be sold.

Devina Gupta meets the entrepreneur who is building pay-as-you-go solar powered cold rooms in India, and hears from farmers, traders and experts on how we can keep food cold as the population grows and the planet warms up.

(Picture: A farmer carries a crate of mangoes from an orchard on the outskirts of Bangalore. Credit: Getty Images)

Presenter: Devina Gupta

The past few years have been marked by two economic trends that have affected pretty much everyone on the planet.

The first is the cost of living crisis that followed the Covid pandemic and was made worse by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. That saw prices in the shops soar - in many countries they rose by their fastest pace for four decades.

The attempt to stamp out this inflation is the second of those big economic trends, as central banks aggressively increased the cost of borrowing. Millions of households and businesses saw the cost of home and company loans shoot up.

But the action taken by central banks does seem to have worked in curbing inflation, and now financial markets predict that interest rates in the United States and Europe will be cut this year. But will they reduce them soon?

(Picture: Federal Reserve Building in Washington, DC, United States. Credit: Getty Images)

Presented and produced by Rob Young

Lawyer Leigh Steinberg had no big dream to become a sports agent. He was a huge sports fan, but the job was not something he was aspiring to – more something that he stumbled across.

Today, he's built up a career representing more than 300 professional athletes across a range of disciplines: from big money-making sports like football and basketball, to Olympic gymnastics; building sporting careers worth billions of dollars.

His influence in sport is so influential that he's often credited as the real-life inspiration for the sports agent in the film Jerry Maguire, starring Tom Cruise.

We speak to Leigh Steinberg about how he started his career as an agent, how he builds a brand around a sports star, and how he's succeeded in such a competitive environment - overcoming some personal struggles along the way. And - how he responds when members of the public approach him with the famous phrase, "Show me the money".

(Picture: Leigh Steinberg. Credit: Getty Images)

Presenter: Roger Hearing

An alcohol shop for diplomats has opened in Saudi Arabia. It’s a significant move in a country that has banned alcohol for over 70 years.

Some believe in order to transform the tourism economy it is a sign of things to come. In the meantime, Riyadh has become known for making some of the best non-alcohol cocktails in the world.

Is this a small policy change, or does it signal a wider relaxation of the rules? We hear from young Saudis about the generational divide in a country trying to change its image.

(Picture: A bartender prepares a non-alcoholic cocktail in a bar in Riyadh. Credit: Getty Images)

Presented and produced by Rick Kelsey

The Chinese-owned online store has exploded in popularity in the past year, shipping to customers in 49 countries around the world. And its advertising has taken centre stage at one of the world’s most watched events: the Super Bowl.

So why is Temu so cheap? And how can it afford to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on advertising to take on its rivals?

We hear from experts, politicians and shoppers in China, the US, and the UK about how the company operates, as it seeks to out-pace the competition.

(Picture: The Temu logo displayed on the screen of a mobile device. Credit: Getty Images)

Presented and produced by Sam Gruet

The government of Uruguay has launched ambitious plans to make hydrogen and green fuels.

The country generates far more of its electricity from renewables than most countries - Uruguay produces more than 90% of its electricity from sustainable resources, like wind. And that, the government says, puts it in a good position to start producing green hydrogen.

Proponents of green hydrogen production in Uruguay say it will be good for the planet and the country's economy, but could it use too much water?

(Picture: Mauricio Caro, a farmer in Uruguay. He worries that if water is taken from the local aquifer to make green fuels, farmers will run short. Credit: Grace Livingstone/BBC)

Presented and produced by Grace Livingstone

Andy Yen is founder and CEO of tech company Proton, best known for its encrypted email service Proton Mail.

He was born in Taiwan, studied in California, then moved to Switzerland to work at CERN as a particle physicist. He then set up Proton from Geneva.

Dougal Shaw talks to the entrepreneur about growing up in the shadow of China, personal privacy in an age when we live our lives online, and his company’s “cat and mouse” games with Russia over VPN software, which allows people to access the internet without state control.

(Picture: Andy Yen)

Presented and produced by Dougal Shaw

Spotify and Soundcloud started out as small, music tech startups in Stockholm, and now, several other companies that blend music production and innovation are choosing to set up shop in the Swedish capital.

In this edition of Business Daily, we meet some of these new businesses, to see why Stockholm holds such appeal. And we try to find out whether music tech is a profitable sector with a long-term future.

(Image: Emelie Olsson, the co- founder of Corite, a music tech startup. Credit: Maddy Savage/BBC)

Presented and produced by Maddy Savage